The invention relates to an endoscope, an endoscope set, and a set of shanks for an endoscope.
With endoscopes, for examples hysteroscopes, it is desirable to design the endoscope shank with as small an outer diameter as possible. The minimum outer diameter is, however, in particular set by the size of the instruments to be introduced. With known endoscopes, for example hysteroscopes, the operator usually begins with an instrument and an endoscope which has the smallest possible diameter. When required, this instrument is exchanged by an instrument which has a larger diameter. This may be the case if larger quantities of tissue are to be removed from the body cavity. In this case then, an endoscope with a larger instrument channel diameter is required. Since the channels arranged in the inside of the known endoscopes are matched to one another in a manner such that free space in the endoscope shank is optimally exploited, one must have several endoscopes with different dimensions ready. The provision of several endoscopes of differing sizes entails high costs.